Start your engines: The race for NASCAR votes

RICHMOND, Va — Conservative activists are racing to snag the pole position with NASCAR voters this election cycle.

While brand names like Skoal, Coca-Cola and Sprint competed for the hard-earned dollars of middle-class race fans on the midway of the Richmond International Speedway on a recent race day, the American Majority tent used race car simulators and patriotic banners to vie for something else: swing state voters. More than two dozen volunteers for the conservative group worked the race in Richmond on a recent weekend, trying to get fans not only to register to vote but to sign a pledge that they would make it to the polls in November.

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Veteran conservative activist Ralph Reed is working the NASCAR pits as well — his Faith and Freedom Coalition sponsored the No. 32 car at the Richmond race, with the message “Register to Vote” displayed on the Ford’s hood as it zipped around the track at 100-plus miles per hour.

These conservative groups are competing for one of the richest pots in the 2012 election: the estimated 75 million NASCAR fans nationwide, who skew white, middle-class and Southern. And while the NASCAR demographic is one that naturally leans Republican, it may not be a slam-dunk this year, especially in swing states like North Carolina, Virginia, Florida and Pennsylvania, all of which President Barack Obama won in 2008, and all of which host major NASCAR races.

Unsurprisingly, it’s well-funded third-party groups like Faith and Freedom and American Majority — rather than the presidential campaigns themselves — that are doing the grass-roots work.

“I think you are going to see the most muscular and robust turnout operation directed at conservatives and center-right voters that you have ever seen,” Reed told POLITICO.

Democrats don’t seem to have nearly the organizational effort under way to lure the NASCAR voter, but the national convention is being held in the heart of NASCAR country — Charlotte — and the Democratic National Committee Host Committee is offering donors a sponsorship slot on a racing car for as little as $5 and organizing a major event at the Charlotte Motor Speedway on Sept. 3, just days before Obama gives his convention speech.

Dave “Mudcat” Saunders, a veteran Virginia Democratic operative, says Democrats shouldn’t cede the NASCAR demographic to Republicans but warned that both parties need to be careful about promoting the presidential candidates at races, since neither is a natural fit for the average NASCAR fan.

“The danger that both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney face is that neither one of them are ever going to be icons of the culture so therefore I’d say have some presence, but a big-time presence I’d never do it because it comes off as disingenuous,” said Saunders, who is largely credited with helping woo NASCAR fans to help Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) win his Senate seat. Warner went so far as to put his name on a race car.

“You’ve got to have the right guy to put on the race car. It’s somebody the NASCAR fans will look at and will say either they are of my culture or they respect and like my culture,” he added.

Progressives don't care for NASCAR since it's mostly Caucasian and is family entertainment That's OK. Let them stick to their reruns of Jimmie "J.J" Walker in "Good Times" and their soft-porn music videos on BET.

What race??? The rednecks vote Republican't because they are not educated enough to think for themselves and vote democrat.

What race indeed!

According to the sainted New York Times, the Bible of the American left, Obama has already given up any hope or desire of competing for the votes of the working white people - especially those in the South. You know, those ignorant rednecks "clinging to their guns and their Bibles" as Obama puts it when he's talking to the leftists out in San Francisco.

We ignorant people down here in the South are just not as smart as all those Obama Democrats who were running through Seattle yesterday smashing in the windows of stores and banks and having to be dispersed with tear gas. We're actually pretty law-abiding down here.

We're just far less educated than those Obama Democrats who were busted yesterday for trying to blow up a bridge - with fake explosives they bought from the F.B.I..

And I guess we're just not nearly as smart as all those genius-level Obama Democrats up in Detroit lining up for hours to get some of those free "Obama bucks" being handed out by the government. You see, down here in the South, we'd rather earn our own way.

But that seems to be the big difference between the big difference between the left and the right these days. The folks on the right earn their own way. The folks on the left are mostly lining up for government handouts.

The premise of this article is wrong. The demographics of people who attend races is a close match for the overall US demographic. The proof of this claim is found at our website: http://www.racinginsites.com/

How can any male vote for Mohamad Hussien Obozo expecialy car nuts. Everything Obama touches turns to SH-T, 50 state blow out no mater what the liberal media spews out. DOA Obozo Care in June 8 to 1, Same about Arizona Law 9-0. 60 The first and only 6 trillion US dollars spent by a President on what! I call this TREASON. To car nuts Obama has spent over 6.9 billion dollars going on vacations with our tax payers money, (when have you gone anywhere lately?) then he wans you drive the worst car in the country the VOLT. Would you watch Nascar will run electric motors in the race cars?!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tell Obama to got to h---.

Don't pick on Republicans for liking NASCAR. Republicans believe in NASCAR and an honest days work. Liberals believe that singing songs, holding hands, waving candles, and holding up a sign printed with "Think Peace" can solve all of the world's problems. Liberals believe in endless tax-hikes, cradle-to-grave welfare, drive-through abortions, and that playing the victim, flip-flopping, and cutting-and-running ought to be an Olympic sport. Liberals believe in Brokeback Mountain majesties, fruited planes of exposed nipples, and amber waves of girls gone wild. Liberals believe in taking away your money, your guns, your crucifix, and your non-vegetable oil-fueled car. Liberals believe in blaming America first, blaming George W. Bush, burning the flag, demoralizing our troops and that there's nothing the US military does that a UN sponsored delegation of lawyers, therapists, and naked hippie demonstrators can't do better. Liberals believe in candidates who like to feel your pain, grope your daughter, drop their trousers, and drive their dates off of a bridge. Liberals believe that if people want to marry their same-sex partner, their pet, their blow up doll, or their cardboard cutout of Barack Obama, that's their right as an American. Liberals believe in lecturing you about the many ways in which you are oppressing them through your racism, heterosexism, classism, ageism, ableism, lookism, ism, heightism, and hygienism. Liberals believe in Free speech as long as it doesn't offend anybody. Liberals believe that the polar ice caps are going to melt away any day now and turn the Rocky Mountains into oceanfront property. And worst of all, liberals believe that your failure to share the same beliefs makes you a politically incorrect, intolerant, bigoted, uninformed, evil, stupid, fascist moron from "fly-over country."

Don't pick on Republicans for liking NASCAR. Republicans believe in NASCAR and an honest days work. Liberals believe that singing songs, holding hands, waving candles, and holding up a sign printed with "Think Peace" can solve all of the world's problems. Liberals believe in endless tax-hikes, cradle-to-grave welfare, drive-through abortions, and that playing the victim, flip-flopping, and cutting-and-running ought to be an Olympic sport. Liberals believe in Brokeback Mountain majesties, fruited planes of exposed nipples, and amber waves of girls gone wild. Liberals believe in taking away your money, your guns, your crucifix, and your non-vegetable oil-fueled car. Liberals believe in blaming America first, blaming George W. Bush, burning the flag, demoralizing our troops and that there's nothing the US military does that a UN sponsored delegation of lawyers, therapists, and naked hippie demonstrators can't do better. Liberals believe in candidates who like to feel your pain, grope your daughter, drop their trousers, and drive their dates off of a bridge. Liberals believe that if people want to marry their same-sex partner, their pet, their blow up doll, or their cardboard cutout of Barack Obama, that's their right as an American. Liberals believe in lecturing you about the many ways in which you are oppressing them through your racism, heterosexism, classism, ageism, ableism, lookism, ism, heightism, and hygienism. Liberals believe in Free speech as long as it doesn't offend anybody THEM. Liberals believe that the polar ice caps are going to melt away any day now and turn the Rocky Mountains into oceanfront property. And worst of all, liberals believe that your failure to share the same beliefs makes you a politically incorrect, intolerant, bigoted, uninformed, evil, stupid, fascist moron from "fly-over country."